


And Once Again

by TheIntelligentHufflepuff



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Light Angst, M/M, Short & Sweet, True Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-28
Updated: 2017-07-28
Packaged: 2018-12-08 02:55:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11637456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheIntelligentHufflepuff/pseuds/TheIntelligentHufflepuff
Summary: Bucky confesses his love five times. Then he tells Steve.





	And Once Again

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Y Una Vez Más](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11637369) by [TheIntelligentHufflepuff](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheIntelligentHufflepuff/pseuds/TheIntelligentHufflepuff). 



> I originally wrote this in Spanish to practice, but I thought I'd translate it into English because then other people can read it and Spanish speakers with better language skills than me can work out what I'm trying to say. Enjoy :)
> 
> [EDITED 10th July 2018: made some things sound less bad]

**1.**

The first time Bucky confessed his love, he confessed it in silence at Steve’s bedside. He had been ill since the previous week, and for seven anxious days Bucky hadn’t slept more than twenty-five hours, kept awake by the pained noises Steve made. As he watched Steve struggle to breathe that night, Bucky bit his nails and found himself wondering what he would do if his best friend died. Who would listen to Bucky’s stories? Who would he talk to when the world seemed too wide and threatening? How would Bucky survive without Steve’s smile, Steve’s wit, Steve’s soul- without Steve?

The last questions were what illuminated a fact that for too long had been hidden in the shadows of his mind: he loved him. Bucky loved Steve. Would a future without Steve seem so dark for any other reason? Bucky wasn’t a coward, but the realisation scared him- it was one more thing that put him in danger, and Steve too, and it wasn’t as if either of the two was in a very secure position to begin with. No, Bucky decided, he would say nothing. 

But he loved him.

**2.**

Bucky almost confessed the day he left for the war. The sky was as grey as he felt, it was raining, and Steve seemed so much brighter than the world around him that it hurt Bucky’s heart. 

“If I was leaving with you…” Steve said to him. 

“I would be even more worried than I already am.” Bucky finished. 

Steve glared, but Bucky knew that Steve’s ire wasn’t totally directed at him; at least half was because of Steve’s personal war with Fate. 

Steve sighed and said “You shouldn’t worry about me.” 

He smiled sadly “I don’t understand why you do it- look after me, I mean- when obviously I can’t do the same.” 

Bucky frowned at his boots. He didn’t like this insecure and spiritless Steve, and he didn’t want to leave while he was hurting. But he didn’t know how to reveal that he would do whatever was necessary to help him and protect him even if he never received anything in return without also revealing at the same time that he loved him and...well, it seemed to him that a love confession would be the last thing that would comfort Steve.

So, Bucky swallowed his words and said “Because we’re friends. Punk.”

**3.**

Everything was fire. His limbs. His head. His blood. Maybe the building too, if his torturers’ swift exit was to be believed. Bucky didn’t know if he cared. Death was coming either way.

“Bucky!”

Bucky’s heart leapt as it always leaped when he heard Steve’s voice. But it couldn’t actually be Steve’s voice, because Steve was far away in Brooklyn and not there in hell with him. 

“Bucky!”

Slowly, he opened his eyes to see Steve’s face in a mist. Bucky’s vision cleared and he saw the strong, handsome body the face was attached to.

“Steve?” he asked, incredulous, and when Steve nodded “What happened?”

“I enlisted.” he told him.

It wasn’t the right time then, so Bucky bit his tongue and said instead- 

“Did it hurt?” 

And

“No! Not without you!”

**4.**

The fourth time that Bucky Barnes confessed his love, he didn’t finish. He had forgotten the name Steve.

He’d forgotten his own, as well.

There was only a rat to hear it.

**5.**

Ironically, he was nearby when the first reports appeared. It was by chance that he looked through the cafe window to see amateur footage of a city rising in the sky, covered in robots like deadly bees, but it was Bucky’s decision to go in and watch the television in horror. While the other customers were loud and restless, he kept still as a post. Although he seemed calm, inside he was a sea of feelings and memories, each one clearer than the last; it was impossible to separate them. Above all there was a primordial fear that was never more intense than when a long time passed without sight of Captain America, and which he had never felt during his life as the Winter Soldier. It was strange, and it was confusing, but as Bucky though more and more it occurred to him that the sentiment wasn’t new.

On the screen, Captain America- no, Steve, his Steve- took a direct hit and fell. Bucky gripped the table, his body was tensing. Although he understood that it wasn’t possible, Bucky yearned to go to Steve, cure him and shield, and then kill every one that hurt him. The desire surprised Bucky, but at least it helped him to understand that he was in love.

**+1**

After the newspaper, he hadn’t been expecting to come back and find an empty flat. But he hadn’t been expecting the first visitor to be Steve. Bucky spent a few seconds absorbing the sight of his darling in the flesh. Doubtless Steve knew  that Bucky was there, but he simply continued to touch the notebooks that Bucky had come back for.

Steve quickly abandoned his farce and asked “Do you remember me?”

Bucky chewed his lip. He could answer in various ways, but only one- hopefully- would drive Steve away. 

(Despite the fact that to be apart from Steve was never what Bucky wanted, it was what would be better for Steve, and Bucky always thought of Steve first.)

“I read about you in a museum.” Bucky lied.

Steve looked at Bucky similarly to how his mother had looked after antics in their youth. Finally, Steve said “You’re a liar. Why do you want me to leave?”

Bucky blinked “There’ll be a fight. It’s mine, and mine alone.”

“You don’t believe that. Even if it’s true, it’s not the only reason why you want me to leave.”

Bucky shook his head. Steve was still stubborn. And loyal. And more than a pretty face, as he saw almost all of what Bucky tried to hide and still refused to leave him in the same way that Bucky couldn’t leave Steve in the river if he tried. In fact, Steve had done as much to protect Bucky as Bucky had done to protect Steve; he even let Bucky shoot him. And that was to say nothing of the expression in Steve’s eyes every time they met as Captain America and the Winter Soldier- an expression like Steve was being forced to fight the other half of his own soul (while at the same time Bucky was torn apart).

_ Maybe...maybe  _ , Bucky dared to think,  _ Steve loves me as something other than a friend _ . There was one way to find out.

Bucky squared his shoulders and said “You’re right. There is another reason why I want you to leave, and it’s that I love you.”

Steve stared at Bucky. Many expressions flickered across his face, his jaw opening and closing as he thought. Bucky didn’t breathe. Finally, Steve spoke.

“If you love me, why do you want to get away from me?”

“I don’t want that.” Bucky assured him “But…” he shrugged “Sometimes if you love something, you have to let it go.”

“That’s not always true.” Steve responded “Since I love you, and nothing in the world could make me leave you.”

Bucky smiled in triumph. The din of boots on the roof broke the moment. Steve and Bucky met in the centre of the room, weapons ready. In the last seconds before the fight, Bucky turned to Steve and kissed him. He laughed.

“Don’t look so surprised, love. I’ve always wanted to do that!”

“Kiss me again when we’ve escaped.” Steve said.

Bucky shut his mouth and fought. After all, he thought he deserved a happy ending.


End file.
